Historical Places

American Tobacco Campus

318 Blackwell St, Downtown Durham
(919) 433-1560
Former Lucky Strike cigarette factory transformed into a one-million-sq.-ft. retail/residential/office campus including restaurants, shops, amphitheatre, and on-site parking garages.
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Asbury Temple United Methodist Church

201 S Alston Ave
(919) 688-4578
United Methodist Church led by Reverend Shane Benjamin. In the late 1950s, Rev. Douglas E. Moore helped pioneer and mentor the student sit-in movement to integrate white-only lunch counters in the South. He was the first N.C. delegate to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
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Beechwood Cemetery

3400 Fayetteville St
(919) 560-4156
Contains the graves of many of Durham’s early African-American business and community leaders: John Merrick, founder of North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance, C.C. Spaulding, general manager & president of N.C. Mutual, and Dr. James E. Shepard, founder and president of what is now North Carolina Central University. Located next to White Rock Baptist Church. Open 7am-5pm in winter, 7am-7pm in summer.
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Bennett Place State Historic Site

4409 Bennett Memorial Rd
(919) 383-4345
Location of the largest troop surrender that ended the Civil War. Includes re-enactments, reconstructed farmhouse, outbuildings, interpretive center, and museum.
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Black Wall Street / Historic Parrish Street

Parrish St
(919) 560-4965
In the early 1900s, African-American business prospered here, and the street became known as America's "Black Wall Street." In the 1960s, the street again attracted national attention as a place where Civil Rights pioneers staged sit-ins and received a memorable visit from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Currently being revitalized and proposed as a National Heritage Area.
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Brightleaf District

Gregson St at Main St, Downtown
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Shops, nationally acclaimed restaurants, and thriving nightclubs in the West end of Downtown Durham. Anchored by namesake Brightleaf Square, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Includes turn-of-the-century brick tobacco warehouses, art galleries, jewelers, clothiers, and specialty shops.
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Brightleaf Square

Gregson St at Main St, Downtown
(919) 682-9229
These Neo-Romanesque brick tobacco warehouses, on the National Register of Historic Places, have been home to locally owned shops and acclaimed restaurants since renovated in 1981.
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Bullington Warehouse

500 N Duke St, Downtown Durham
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Built in 1927, last of the brick tobacco warehouses to be built in Downtown Durham in 1927. On National Register of Historic Places.
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Carolina Theatre

309 W Morgan St, Downtown Durham
(919) 560-3030
The renovated 1926 Beayx Arts Buidling includes magnificent Fletcher Hall for live performances and two adjacent cinemas, showing art films. The Carolina Theatre hosts performances of Durham's sumphony and opera company, as well as the annual Full Frame Documentary Film Restival and NC ay & Lesbian Film Festival.
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Downtown Durham Historic District

Downtown Durham, Downtown Loop
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North Carolina's first commercial district on the National Register of Historic Places. Includes Main Street, government buildings, the central business district, Durham Civic Center Complex, and the Brightleaf District, anchored by namesake Brightleaf Square. Learn more with the Downtown Durham Walking Tour available at the official Durham Visitor Information Center, 101 E Morgan St.
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Duke Homestead State Historic Site and Tobacco Museum

2828 Duke Homestead Rd
(919) 477-5498
Retrace the beginnings of the modern-day tobacco industry at this National Historic Landmark where Washington Duke started his successful tobacco empire. Duke family's mid-1800s home, tobacco barns, original factory and museum showcase tobacco history and production and pioneering marketing strategies. Closed Sundays and Mondays.
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Duke Sports Hall of Fame

302 Whitford Dr
(919) 613-7500
Decades of Duke University athletic achievements showcased with visual and audio exhibits, theatre, and trophies of national championships. Open to the public M-F 8am-5pm.
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Duke University

(919) 684-5600
One of the nation's top universities founded as Trinity College and renamed in 1924 after an endowment by James Buchanan Duke. Includes Neo-Gothic West Campus, Central Campus and Neo-Georgian East Campus, site of a former racetrack and pleasure resort. Highlights include Duke University Chapel, Sarah P. Duke Gardens, Cameron Indoor Stadium, 7,700-acre Duke Forest, Duke Lemur Center, Nasher Museum of Art, and Duke University Medical Center. Campus tours conducted M-F at 11:30am and 2pm.
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Duke University

West Central Durham (West/Central/East Campuses)
(919) 684-8111
One of the nation's top universities, founded as Trinity College and renamed in 1924 after an endowment by James Buchanan Duke. Neo-Gothic West Campus stretches in an arc around Downtown Durham to the Neo-Georgian East Campus, site of a former racetrack and pleasure resort. Highlights of the campuses include Duke University Chapel, Sarah P. Duke Gardens, Cameron Indoor Stadium, 7,700-acre Duke Forest, Duke Lemur Center, Nasher Museum of Art, and Duke University Medical Center. Campus tours conducted M-F at 11:30 am and 2 pm.
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Duke University Chapel

Chapel Dr, Duke West Campus
(919) 684-2572
Built in 1930, the, cathedral-like centerpiece of Duke's West Campus soars 210 feet into the air. Represents one of the last great collegiate Gothic projects in the United States and features the Flentrop Organ (5,200 pipes), 50-bell carillon, and stained-glass windows. Numerous chapel services and recitals each week. Call for details.
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Ephphatha Church

220 W Geer St
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Constructed in 1930, Neo-Gothic Revival-style church, one of only four churches in the nation to be built for the Deaf. Now on the National Register of Historic Places.
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First Baptist Church

414 Cleveland St
(919) 688-7308
1927 Neoclassical Revival building with 1,100-seat sanctuary for congregation dating to 1845. Dr. Andrew Davis now leads the congregation.
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First Presbyterian Church

305 E Main St
(919) 682-5511
This 1916 building with German stained-glass windows stands on the site of two previous churches built by the congregation in 1875 and 1890. Currently led by Pastor Joseph S. Harvard.
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Geer Cemetery

Camden at Colonial and McGill Sts
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First cemetery for African-Americans in Durham. Margaret Faucette, founder of White Rock Baptist Church, and Edian Markham, founder of St. Joseph’s AME Church and organizer of Hayti neighborhood, lie there.
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Hayti Heritage Center

804 Old Fayetteville St
(919) 683-1709
Houses a community room, two classrooms/artists' studio, dance studio, the two-level Lyda Moore Merrick Gallery, Rhythm & Blues Gallery, and the 450-seat St. Joseph's Performance Hall in the former St. Joseph's AME Church sanctuary (a National Register site, circa 1891).
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Historic Baldwin Building

107 W Main St
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1927 Neoclassical building, former site of Baldwin's Department Store.
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Historic Stagville

5828 Old Oxford Hwy
(919) 620-0120
Once among the South's largest plantation holdings. Features an 18th-century house, slave quarters, and a unique great barn at this historic site dedicated to preservation and African-American cultural, historic studies.
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Historic Woolworth's Counter

1801 Fayetteville St, NCCU, William Jones Building
(919) 530-6100
The sit-in as a form of civil protest was pioneered in Durham during the 1950s-60s. It was at a sit-in here that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. first embraced the practice. A portion of the original lunch counter, its seats, and pie rack are now preserved in the William Jones Building at North Carolina Central University.
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Maplewood Cemetery

1621 Duke University Rd
(919) 560-4156
Over 100 acres of history, dating to 1869. Civil War veterans and soldiers, tobacco magnates, and community leaders rest here. Many gravesites marked with Victorian funereal art. Six Italian marble figures surround Carr family plot, while the Duke Mausoleum sits on cemetery's highest knoll.
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North Carolina Central University

1801 Fayetteville St
(919) 530-6100
Founded in 1910, NCCU is the nation's first publicly-supported liberal arts college for African-Americans. The 103-acre, Georgian-Revival campus features a bronze statue of founder Dr. James E. Shepard, the NCCU Art Museum, one of the nation’s highest rated law schools for women, and the L.T. Walker Complex, named for United States Olympic Committee President LeRoy Walker. Currently 8,383 students are enrolled at NCCU.
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Patterson's Mill Country Store, Inc.

5109 Farrington Rd, between NC Hwy 54 & Old Chapel Hill Rd
(919) 493-8149
Preserved, turn-of-the-nineteenth-century country store and doctor's office/pharmacy. Features displays of mercantile and pharmaceutical Americana, tobacco marketing memorabilia, antiques, and collectibles.
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Preservation Durham

3001 Academy Road, Ste 130
(919) 682-3036
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Site of Former Downtown Durham Woolworth Store

124 W Main St
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Site of 1960 lunch counter sit-in where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. appeared and first endorsed direct but non-violent confrontation with segregation laws. King's famous "Fill up the jails" speech in Durham followed. Sit-ins were pioneered by King's classmate, Rev. Douglas Moore of Durham, then spread throughout the South. A portion of the historic Durham Woolworth counter as well as its seats and a pie rack are on display in the William Jones Building at North Carolina Central University.
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St. Joseph's Performance Hall at the Hayti Heritage Center

804 Old Fayetteville St
(919) 683-1709
Restored former sanctuary of St. Joseph's AME Church, one of America's first autonomous African-American churches dating back to 1869.This 1891 Richardsonian Romanesque building includes stained glass windows honoring patrons Washington Duke, Julian Carr, W.T. Blackwell, and Eugene Morehead. On the National Register of Historic Places. Open M-F, 10am-5pm; Sa, 10am-3pm; call for Su. schedule.
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Trinity United Methodist Church

215 N Church St
(919) 683-1386
1924 Gothic Revival church noted for woodcarvings. Famous members included Soong Chiao-chun, one of the leaders of China's 1911 Chinese Revolution, whose two daughters married Chiang Kai-shek and Dr. Sun Yat-sen.
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West Point on the Eno City Park

5101 N Roxboro Rd (US Hwy 501)
(919) 471-1623
Located along the Eno River in northern Durham, the park features a reconstructed 1778 working grist mill with cornmeal for sale, the historic McCown-Mangum House dating to the mid-1800s, the Hugh Mangum Museum of Photography, hiking trails, and amphitheater. Picnicking, hiking, rafting, and canoeing available.
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